These 20 Cars Won't Make It to 2017

Whether they left quietly under the cover of night or simply were pushed aside by a new and improved version of their former selves, these are the 20 cars that won't make it to 2017.

Oct 29, 2016

Whether they left quietly under the cover of night or simply were pushed aside by a new and improved version of their former selves, these are the 20 cars that won't make it to 2017.

1 of 20

Aston Martin DB9

Like a cup of Earl Grey tea, a Lennon-McCartney composition, or the comedy of Monty Python, the Aston Martin DB9 is instantly recognizable, fundamentally timeless, and resolutely British. That's true despite two decades of ownership under interests based outside the U.K. Designed by Ian Callum and Henrik Fisker, it was unveiled in 2003 and immediately set to the task of dropping jaws and separating buyers from their money. Based on Aston's—by way of then-owner Ford—aluminum-intensive Vertical Horizontal (VH) platform, its styling and 12-cylinder engine became the template for Astons to come. But as anyone who's witnessed a wedding band perform a Beatles song can attest, sometimes even the classics can feel a bit tired. As a first step in adapting its legacy for the modern world, Aston limited 2016 DB9 production to only the DB9 GT. Packing a 540-hp V12, it sends the DB9 GT off with a parting gift of an additional 30 horsepower compared with the previous year's car. When the DB9 GTs are gone, its place in the lineup will be filled by the similarly styled and somewhat larger 2017 DB11. Sure, we'll miss it, but with a 13-year lifespan and looks that still make us go weak in the knees, the iconic DB9 likely will make the transition from production to classic without trouble. —Andrew Wendler

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2 of 20

BMW Z4

BMW first modern roadster was the Z3. In 2002, when the second-gen version was born, its model number ticked up one, to Z4. That redesign also saw the two-seater slapped with the heavy hand of BMW's "flame surfacing" styling treatment. A third-gen model that arrived for 2009 toned down the wild sheetmetal creases and stretched out the proportions to create a much prettier sports car, but the switch to a retractable hardtop added weight. A six-cylinder version of that 2009 model came in second behind the Porsche Boxster in a Car and Driver comparison test that also included the Audi TT roadster and the Chevy Corvette convertible. In recent years, two six-cylinder versions were offered (topping out at 335 horsepower), along with a turbo-four base model. But the market for roadsters is a tough one, and volumes are small. Which is why the model's Z5 successor will come via joint effort, with Toyota. —Joe Lorio

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3 of 20

Buick Verano

When the Buick Verano debuted for the 2012 model year, the idea of a compact luxury sedan from GM's mid-level brand seemed entirely reasonable. Given the dodgy fiscal climate and volatile energy prices at the time, Buick would have been remiss if it didn't fill out its lineup with an efficient and affordable vehicle. Sadly for the Verano, gas prices soon began to decline, and buyer interest predictably shifted back to larger vehicles, especially crossovers and SUVs. Sales peaked at 45,527 units in 2013, and GM capitulated to market realities and announced that production of the Verano would cease in October 2016, allowing just enough time to crank out a limited run of 2017-model-year units. The nameplate will not be entirely scrubbed from the brand's global product portfolio, however, as a new Verano is being prepped for sale in China, currently Buick's largest market. —Andrew Wendler

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4 of 20

Cadillac ELR

Cadillac's first-ever plug-in hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt-based ELR, got started with a bizarre, jingoistic advertising campaign that drew ire for its xenophobic, America-centric message. Along with the ill-conceived TV spot, the stylish ELR's sky-high $75,000 price and low-power hybrid drivetrain meant that sales never took off: GM sold fewer than 1500 units in both 2014 and 2015. For the 2016 model year, Cadillac made a last-ditch effort to save the ELR by increasing power, cutting the price by $10,000, and supposedly improving the handling (we never got the chance to drive one), but it wasn't enough. Earlier this year, ELR production quietly ended at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, which also builds the Volt, the Cadillac CT6, and the Chevrolet Impala and Malibu. —Joseph Capparella

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5 of 20

Cadillac SRX

In 2003, the first-generation Cadillac SRX crossover prevailed in a comparison test against such formidable competition as the Porsche Cayenne and the Infiniti FX45. Ostensibly a three-row crossover, that first SRX was really more of a CTS station wagon, with a rear-drive-based chassis and available V8 power that made it a surprisingly sporting machine. For its second generation, Cadillac gave in to the prevailing crossover trend with a front-drive-based SRX that shared much more with the Chevrolet Equinox than it did with other Cadillac sedans. But as is often the case, the buying public flocked to this more cookie-cutter luxury crossover, and sales took off, to the point that the SRX became Cadillac's best-selling model in recent years. That's why it's no surprise that the replacement for the SRX, now called the XT5, follows that same formula, targeting the Lexus RX in a quest for those mainstream luxury buyers who care more about USB ports and comfy seats than they do about corner-carving ability. —Joseph Capparella

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6 of 20

Chrysler 200

In 2015, the newest Chrysler 200 sedan's first full year on sale, just shy of 178,000 were sold. During the same period, Honda moved more than twice as many Accords. Later in the 200's short life, Chrysler was forced to recall the vehicle due to transmission woes. Directly preceding the sedan's death certificate (after a short run of 2017 models, 200 production will cease in December), parent company Fiat Chrysler committed to the bold decision to largely abandon new-car development in favor of trucks and SUVs. While that move makes sense on the face of things—truck and SUV sales are booming right now—we can't help but think it unwise. What if gas prices go up again? And if Honda has proven anything with the Accord, it's that if you actually build an excellent mid-size sedan, it can sell in huge numbers, even as herds of Americans flock to crossovers. —Alex Stoklosa

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7 of 20

Chrysler Town & Country

We hope you don't have plans to travel to the town or the country in 2017, because Chrysler no longer sells a vehicle to serve those needs. The Chrysler Town & Country is dead, replaced by the significantly better Chrysler Pacifica minivan. It's likely that no one will miss the old van that was outclassed by competitors from Honda and Toyota. Still, given that the Town & Country name dates back to the 1940s, it's a shame to see the nameplate—but not the car it was attached to—go to the big scrap heap in the sky. While its Dodge Grand Caravan sibling soldiers on for 2017, we expect that model soon will meet its maker, too. —Greg Fink

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8 of 20

Dodge Dart

In some ways, the Dart was cursed before it ever turned a wheel. It seemed strange to apply the moniker of an old-lady-favorite compact from the 1960s and '70s to an all-new entry aimed at the millennial set. Nonetheless, the front-wheel-drive sedan came to life, built on a modified Fiat-Alfa platform. Initial response was good; the styling was on the mark, and, from the stage at the 2012 Detroit auto show, the interior appeared to be well appointed and stylish. Unfortunately, once the cars began to trickle into public circulation, it became painfully clear that the Dart could have used more time in the incubator. Complicating matters, Chrysler initially offered the car in a bewildering number of trim and powertrain combinations—FCA chairman Sergio Marchionne later admitted it should have led with the 2.4 Tigershark four-cylinder as the sole engine and let the 2.0-liter naturally aspirated and 1.4-liter turbocharged engines trickle into the lineup later, if at all. Although sales peaked in 2015 at 87,392 units, FCA determined it was a better use of its resources to reconfigure the Dart's Belvidere, Illinois, assembly plant to make full-size trucks instead, eliminating the Dart from the lineup at the end of the 2016 model year. FCA has not, however, ruled out resurrecting the Dart if it can strike a deal with another manufacturer to build it under contract.

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9 of 20

Land Rover LR4

Where once there was the LR3, its mildly revised follow-up became the LR4, soon to be swept out by the Discovery. The LR3 first appeared in 2005, a boxy, smooth-sided three-row SUV that replaced Land Rover's long-running Discovery, meaning that when the new Discovery takes over the LR4's place in the lineup next year, then this story will have come full circle. Outside of an incredibly beefy curb weight—even among typically corpulent SUVs—the LR3 was a nice-enough off-road rig that became better to drive after its transition to LR4 brought revised suspension tuning and sharper steering. As Car and Driver noted in an early review of the LR4, the SUV offered the "upscale ambience of the Range Rover. For about 30 grand less." —Alex Stoklosa

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10 of 20

Dodge Viper

The Dodge Viper was too good for this world, and so its day of reckoning has arrived. A batch of limited-edition 2017 models will be released as a form of respect to the V-10 supercoupe before production ends—probably for good, this time—but for the purposes of this story, it's dead enough. Already killed once, at the end of the 2010 model year, the Viper was reborn in 2013. No longer a Dodge, the brash coupe bore the SRT nameplate; however, like a divorcée returning to her maiden name, the Viper fell back under the Dodge brand in 2015. To this day, the Viper remains a stellar performance machine. At our annual Lightning Lap competition, a 2016 Dodge Viper ACR lapped Virginia International Raceway in an astonishing 2 minutes and 44.2 seconds, besting its distant corporate cousin, the much pricier Ferrari 488GTB, by almost a full second. Sales of the new car, though, never caught fire. Its best year came in 2014, when 760 Vipers left showroom floors. In the end, the American public's buying habits turned out to be the mongoose that killed the Viper. —Greg Fink

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11 of 20

Honda CR-Z

Released in 2010 as a 2011 model, the Honda CR-Z hybrid struggled from the start to find buyers. Car and Driver called it a compromise—neither a compelling economy car nor a fun-to-drive performance coupe. Honda made minor updates to the car throughout its life, but they weren't enough to turn the CR-Z into a real sports coupe, nor did they enhance its appeal to eco-minded hybrid customers. Last year, Honda moved just 3073 of the hatchbacks off U.S. lots. To put that in perspective, Honda sold more than 100 times as many Civics in the same period. —Greg Fink

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12 of 20

Hyundai Genesis Coupe

At six model years old, the big Genesis coupe wasn't exactly a young whippersnapper, but it seems younger that that, doesn't it? The Korean coupe represented a bright light at a time when the auto market is increasingly devoid of affordable rear-wheel-drive, stick-shift cars, but the writing had been on the wall for the Genesis coupe since at least the 2015 model year, when Hyundai axed the base 2.0-liter turbocharged engine from the lineup, leaving only the big 348-hp 3.8-liter V-6. While recent concepts such as the Vision G coupe and the Genesis New York give us hope that Hyundai will once again bring both a coupe and a sportier model to its Genesis luxury brand, we're less optimistic that any future Genesis vehicle will offer a manual transmission to accompany its rear-wheel-drive chassis. —Greg Fink

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13 of 20

Hyundai Equus

Join us as we pour one out for the big luxury sedan that looked every part the ideal ride of South Korea's Jopok. Despite styling that was inconspicuous to the point of being generic, the Equus came out of the gate swinging in the 2011 model year, and it immediately made its mark by defeating an all-wheel-drive Lexus LS460L in a comparison testCar and Driver conducted in 2011. Unfortunately, the Equus then spent the next four years failing to grab our attention. However, Hyundai continued to subtly improve the model. For instance, the 2012 Equus adopted Hyundai's 429-hp 5.0-liter V-8 engine and eight-speed automatic transmission, replacing the previous 385-hp 4.6-liter and six-speed automatic. Meanwhile, 2014 saw a mild facelift and a revised interior. Although the Equus wasn't a bad car, it suffered from a clear identity crisis that failed to entice buyers shopping for large luxury sedans. In its best sales year, just under 4000 were sold. Hyundai, however, is undeterred. Although the Equus is gone, the Korean automaker is coming back even bigger, with the new G90 sedan, under its newly separate Genesis brand. —Greg Fink

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14 of 20

Jeep Patriot

The Jeep Patriot lived its life being denigrated by the likes of us for being less exciting than drying paint, cheaply made, and, frankly, tragic to drive, so why should it also be denigrated in death? Because, like the Chicago Cubs, we like a slow pitch over home plate. Also, terrible cars that sell in huge numbers frustrate our sensibilities. Cheap pricing and even cheaper lease deals kept the Patriot rolling out of showrooms, but there were few highlights over its 10-year production run outside of some late-in-life refinements and the fact that its Jeep Compass sibling was even worse. And what does the Patriot get for that last achievement? The combined replacement for it and the Compass is named . . . Compass. See? Even Jeep is kicking the Patriot when it's down, although it will survive for a bit longer with a short 2017 model-year run until production finishes up at the end of 2016. —Alex Stoklosa

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15 of 20

Lincoln MKS

If you measure by the age of the Lincoln MKS's underpinnings, which were derived from the basic platform introduced with the 1999 Volvo S80, the MKS was already old by the time it debuted for the 2009 model year. Nevertheless, this old dog learned a few new tricks by ushering in a new Lincoln "waterfall" grille design that later propagated across the lineup, and by offering a powerful 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 that made for decently quick acceleration. Sales, however, never took off, probably because the MKS was insufficiently luxurious to justify its high pricing. Lincoln went back to the drawing board for the MKS's replacement, cooking up another new grille design and reviving the historic Continental nameplate for its new flagship luxury sedan that has now supplanted the MKS and is on sale nationwide. —Joseph Capparella

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16 of 20

Rolls-Royce Phantom

Like a ghostly apparition, the Rolls-Royce Phantom is about to disappear, but unlike most visitors from the spiritual world, it certainly did hang around for a long time—13 years, to be exact. The first Rolls-Royce developed under BMW corporate ownership, the Phantom used aluminum spaceframe construction and a BMW-sourced V12 engine (upsized to the traditional 6.75 liters of displacement). The upright styling, extravagantly cab-rearward proportions, and signature detailing, such as the rear-hinged coach doors, all represented a break with the past, and yet the whole was unmistakably a Rolls. Plutocratic Anglophiles should take solace in the fact that a replacement for the four-door—the "limousine"—is being readied. The Coupe and the Drophead Coupe (convertible), however, will vanish, never to return. —Joe Lorio

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17 of 20

Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid

When the regular Subaru Crosstrek already is slow, underpowered, and fairly fuel-efficient, what could possibly have compelled Subaru to introduce a just-as-slow, similarly underpowered, barely more fuel-efficient (per the EPA) hybrid iteration for an extra $3000? We can only imagine there was some internal PowerPoint slide depicting Subaru buyers' granola-like crunchiness and warm, fuzzy feelings toward the environment that made the Crosstrek hybrid seem like a good idea. It wasn't, and worse, the hybrid netted the same 26 mpg in our hands as did the regular Crosstrek. The hybrid powertrain also was unrefined, the extra weight negatively affected handling and braking, and—need we go on? We don't claim to foretell the future, but we were pretty spot-on when, in our first test of a Crosstrek hybrid, we declared it was "playing the niche card to an extreme that might satisfy a handful of brand loyalists but with deficits that could make for a short life cycle." If only we could muster the same clairvoyance when betting on sports. —Alex Stoklosa

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18 of 20

Volkswagen Eos

Rumors of the Volkswagen Eos's death, which first popped up in early 2015, were premature, if not greatly exaggerated. The retractable-hardtop convertible ended up continuing on for the 2016 model year, with Volkswagen selling a few hundred exclusively in base-model Komfort form. That truly was the last straw for the nearly 10-year-old Volkswagen, though, as the Eos isn't even making a cameo for the 2017 model year. We can't say we're sad to see it go, especially considering its heavy folding-roof mechanism and its aging platform from the Mark 5 Volkswagen Golf (we're now well into the Mark 7 Golf's run) that left it far from the Volkswagen Group's cutting edge. —Joseph Capparella

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19 of 20

Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid

Given how cheap gas prices have lowered interest in high-mpg hybrids as of late, we're not too surprised to see the Jetta hybrid disappear for 2017. But we can't help but think that killing off VW's lone hybrid offered in the U.S. contradicts the company's push towards an electrified future. It's a bit disappointing, as we were fans of the Jetta hybrid, which was relatively fun to drive and offered an impressive EPA rating of 44 mpg combined. Car and Driver even picked the hybrid version as the second-place finisher in a Jetta-only comparison test in 2013, placing it ahead of the conventional five-cylinder and TDI diesel models. (The performance-oriented GLI finished first.) As for the rest of the Jetta lineup, three engines remain: the base 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, the mid-level 1.8-liter turbo four, and the 2.0-liter turbo four in the GLI. —Joseph Capparella

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20 of 20

Volvo S80

Nearly 10 years into its model run, Volvo's largest sedan finally is getting replaced. Never a strong seller, the S80 attempted to do battle with cars such as the BMW 5-series and Mercedes-Benz E-class, but didn't really hold a candle to the Germans in terms of luxury, technology, or performance. Volvo did add its turbocharged Drive-E four-cylinder engine to the S80 lineup for 2015, but that failed to elevate sales—only a paltry 1887 S80s were sold last year. Its replacement is the new S90 sedan, renamed to align with the XC90 crossover with which it shares a new platform and powertrains. With its gorgeous design inside and out, the S90 is worlds more modern than the S80, and paints a much brighter future for Volvo. —Joseph Capparella

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